


choke me like you hate me (but you love me)

by swisstae



Series: love, hate: it's all the same thing [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Auror Harry Potter, Don't try this at home kids, Enemies who have Sex, Fuckbuddies, Hate Sex, Hate to Love, Hopeful Ending, Inspired by Poetry, Love/Hate, M/M, POV Draco Malfoy, Unhealthy Relationships, seriously
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-03
Updated: 2021-01-03
Packaged: 2021-03-13 04:01:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28522071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/swisstae/pseuds/swisstae
Summary: (it’s such a shame, though, for eyes that beautiful and a mouth that lovely to be twisted with so much hatred.)
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter
Series: love, hate: it's all the same thing [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2089350
Comments: 6
Kudos: 66





	choke me like you hate me (but you love me)

**Author's Note:**

> this is hugely self-indulgent oops (don't come @ me for using corpse as a title choice haha)  
> inspired by an amalgamation of Rupi Kaur's poems, which I read and haphazardly arranged to create a story of some sort. it is also an extended version of drabble #1.  
> thanks for the beta, lunawrites! 
> 
> disclaimer: this contains bad decisions and unhealthy relationships. they're not making the best choices here, because this is not a fun-filled ride. don't try this at home.

It’s not easy to unlearn a lifetime’s worth of bad decisions. It can’t be, not when every decision you make is second-guessed at every turn; when you’re so unsure as to what is _right_ and _wrong;_ when you’re scared that whatever you eventually choose, it will always be wrong, wrong, _wrong._

You’ve always been self destructive, after all.

(but is it so wrong if you know it’s the right person?)

**i. i’d be lying if i said  
you make me speechless  
the truth is you make my  
tongue so weak it forgets  
what language to speak in.**

_Bright,_ Draco thinks. _Desperate. Blazing._

It’s what he always feels when this happens. Like he’s burning too fast, too hot, and too bright for someone so dead on the inside. Like he’s being consumed alive— hands, lips, and heart shaking and vibrant ( _too_ vibrant) and pulsating with blood. 

It’s a drug. This feeling, he means. It gives him that rush— that striking, resonant feeling of being in complete control even when he’s not, of feeling _alive_ even when he’s not. 

His hands are pinned to the walls, a hard thigh pushed in between his own, and a hot wet mouth sucking an entire sky of constellations on his body. 

He wants to reach out and touch, to sift through that unruly mop of dark hair, thread his hands at the nape of his neck and pull him into a breathless kiss. He wants those calloused hands to map out the galaxy he’s painted on Draco’s blemished canvas, to coax out the little sounds Draco stubbornly keeps to himself. 

He wants, he wants, he _wants_. 

But that had been the first of their two rules. 

_Don’t touch me,_ he’d said, the corners of his mouth downturned in a permanent scowl, his green eyes flashing bright with disgust and hatred. (just like the Killing Curse, just as full of vitriol and piercing light to turn you to ashes and dust.)

_And don’t look for me in public. Do you understand, Malfoy? I don’t want to be seen with you._

What could he have done but agreed? To have a piece (of the boy he has always obsessed over, the man he wants to possess with every shard of his black, broken heart) is better than nothing. 

(it’s such a shame, though, for eyes that beautiful and a mouth that lovely to be twisted with so much hatred.) 

**ii. combined, the two of us could burn a city**

Draco Malfoy lives an uncluttered life. His flat is small and shabby, his clothes even more so. He can only afford the bagged tea he finds in the small shop near his house and the single duvet he managed to smuggle out of the Manor before it was possessed by the Ministry. (the very same one his mother would wrap him up in when he was but a small child, her hand in his hair, her voice melodious and sweet as she sang him to sleep.)

But no one disrupts this life. No one disrupts this post-war existence he has managed to carve out in a world that despises him. 

No one could ever disrupt it in the way Harry Potter has always managed to. 

He awaits those evenings in anticipation— those nights when Harry will slam down his door and take whatever Draco is willing to give. Perhaps more. (but when has Draco not surrendered to Harry’s will?)

He awaits the heavy, predatory footsteps in the shadowed corridor outside his door, the way Harry’s eyes always blaze with an unidentified emotion when he sees Draco, the way Harry ravages his mouth, searching for something he already holds in the palm of his hand: Draco’s heart fluttering like the elusive Snitch. 

It will always be far too little, Draco knows, even as he can feel Harry’s harsh breaths warming the nape of his neck, his thrusts sharp and hard as they rock the bed. Draco’s own body, plucked like the strings of an instrument under Harry’s skilled hands. His mind filled with nothing but static when his toes curl with the force of his orgasm, his heart bleeding at the edges when Harry leaves him on the mattress, sloppy and disgusting, as he walks away.

Like he can’t bear to even look at Draco when he’s not fucking him. 

_Too little,_ Draco thinks when he looks at himself in his mirror the next morning, the purplish bruises stark on his pale skin, fingerprints on his hips and his heart. _Too little, when I finally know what I want._

**iii. stay  
i whispered  
as you  
shut the door behind you.**

He knows why Harry keeps coming back to him. 

They’re the only two souls who haven’t moved on. They’re stuck. Stuck in this limbo of hatred and fear and guilt, something neither of them can break free of. 

They’re the only ones who haven’t been able to leave the War behind. Harry’s an Auror of course, broad shouldered with a cruel glint in his emerald eyes. _Too violent_ , people whisper behind his back. _Too dangerous_. He’s got the highest success rate for apprehending criminals in the Auror force, but he’s got a penchant for being too heavy-handed with the punishments. 

Draco can see it sometimes, in the animalistic way Harry fucks him, when he thinks that a Dark wizard has been let off too lightly, or, God forbid, someone has gotten away from him. It’s all pressed into Draco’s skin: the red marks of Harry’s teeth in his shoulder, the mottled bruises around his hips, the way Harry leaves him unsatisfied and walks away. 

Draco can’t move on, either. Not when he has the... the _Mark_ tainting him, not when he can still see it burning as black as the day it was branded into his arm. Not when he still can’t shake the fear that he might unwittingly call the Dark Lord back with one misstep, even though he knows how impossible it sounds. 

It’s not enough to come back to an empty flat every day, waiting for something he knows he can never have. 

Not when the man he’s starting to fall in love with is stuck here in limbo, too. 

Draco’s always been too interested in lighting fires to not be burnt himself. 

**iv. you should see me  
when my heart is broken  
i don’t grieve  
i shatter**

Draco hasn’t cried in seven years. 

He stands in front of the dirty mirror hanging in his tiny bathroom, his reflection mocking him as it stares back at him dry-eyed and solemn. Even though all he wants to do is fall apart, wants the physical evidence of his heart shattering into a million tiny pieces, jagged and ugly and misshapen.

He knew it was too good to be true. It’s been too long since— and he’d gotten used to it. He’d gotten used to being the one to bear the brunt of Harry’s dark moods, his unfettered jubilance whenever he’d been particularly successful. 

He lets out a laugh— only, it doesn’t sound like one. It sounds like the crackle of gunfire, like a thousand untuned, discordant pianos, like the way glass fractures when you clutch it too hard. 

He can’t cry, so he’ll laugh. He’ll laugh the laugh of the insane, of the ones left behind, of the person who knows what he had in his hands and let it go. 

He picks up _The Daily Prophet_ lying next to the sink, and looks at the front page again. The soft smile on Harry’s face tears him apart worse than any Unforgivable Curse. 

**_“Has the Saviour Finally Found Love?”_ **

**v. love is not cruel  
we are cruel  
love is not a game  
we have made a game  
out of love**

“Back so soon, Potter?” Draco’s voice is exceptionally sharp, even colder than the cutting tones his father would use when he was displeased. 

He can sense Ha- _Potter’s_ confusion. Draco might be sharp and cruel out of bed, but he’s always been more than eager for it to be given to him, his snarky comments curbed by a warning press of fingers against his throat. 

“Thought you’d finally found _love._ What, was she too vanilla for you?” Draco’s sitting on his couch, fingers trembling around the book he’s holding. He knows Potter can see him shaking, judging by the way his breathing slows. “Have I become your side bitch now, Potter? The filthy Death Eater who has nothing to do but wait pathetically for you to come and fuck him into the mattress?”

“What are you talking about?” Potter’s voice is heavy with confusion, his tone low. Draco hates that he wants to hear more of it, wants Potter to keep talking to him like he’s a person and not just a fucktoy. 

Draco takes a measured breath and puts his book down. He pulls out the newspaper from under the stack of papers where he’d hidden it, its edges creased and careworn from the abuse it’s suffered from Draco’s stiff, shaking fingers. As he shakes it open, the familiar surge of anger and vitriol rises up in his throat like bile, and he can only hold it out to Potter silently. His eyes are closed but he remembers the picture, playing on a loop, and how he would obsessively trace that glimpse of a smile on Potter’s face with a finger. 

The footsteps come closer, less heavy now. Potter sits down next to him, his bulky frame awkwardly squeezed in the limited space afforded to him. “Draco. Draco, look at me.” He reaches out a hand clad in black fingerless gloves and curls his larger fingers around Draco’s thin trembling ones, stilling them. 

“Look at me, Draco.” His tone brokers no arguments now as Draco unwillingly lifts his head to look into Potter’s eyes. They’re just as vibrantly green as they were fifteen years ago, but they hold a new gravity to them. And Draco aches from someplace deep inside himself, a place that still yearns to be filled up with Potter's raw edges, because he’d rather have something than that aching emptiness of loneliness. 

“Do I look like the kind of man who can settle down with anyone, much less— what, a vanilla woman?” Draco can only shake his head, too mesmerised by the way Potter’s words aren’t tinged by that disgust he usually harbors when addressing Draco. 

“I’m too broken, Draco. I don’t have it in me to love anyone anymore. I don’t let anyone in. I can’t afford to.” 

He pulls Draco closer ( _closer_ ) until Draco has to reach out a hand to steady himself on the other man’s shoulders. 

“You’re the only one who understands that, Draco. You’re the only one who sees me.”

Draco laughs. It’s a bitter, choked sound, like he’s trying to swallow broken glass. “ _I_ see you, Potter? When would I have had the chance to?” He glares at Potter, meeting his cool eyes, his own ablaze with fury. “When you fuck me from behind so you don’t have to see my face and know that you’re fucking a Death Eater? When you throw me against the wall and cover my arm so you can’t see the Mark? When you leave me as soon as you’ve finished fucking me to your satisfaction? Is that what you mean, by _understanding_ you? Is that what you mean by _seeing_ you?” 

“I mean that we’re both cut from the same cloth.” Harry explains, patiently. “Neither of us can move on because there’s something irreparably broken inside of us. And only we can see that.” 

“But you don’t want me.” Draco says, voice hardening again. He can’t do this anymore. He may have lost his pride, but he has not lost his sense of self-preservation. He can’t afford to give more of himself to someone who doesn’t care. “You said it yourself. You just want a quick fuck. And I’m convenient.” 

Potter doesn’t even try to deny it, his face growing thoughtful, almost mockingly so. And with every second that passes, with Draco scanning Potter’s face desperately, his heart sinks further and further, until he’s not sure he can feel it at all any more. 

Until finally, Potter speaks. “That might have been true three years ago. I was still angry at you then.” He runs a hand through his hair and scoffs. “Hell, I was angry at everyone. And I thought you deserved it at the time, to have no one in your corner. No one looking out for Mother’s darling boy. I wanted you to suffer then.” 

“And how is that any different from now?” Draco asks, his voice dull. It’s over now. He can say whatever the hell he wants because this thing between them has dissolved. He doesn’t care about the consequences of asking intimate questions anymore. Ha-Potter’s not coming back. Whatever bullshit he said about not having found another woman was just that— bullshit. Draco knows better. If not a woman, then it must be a man. 

Another man who would be whole himself and heal Harry’s raw, broken parts. Another man who would love him and be allowed to touch him gently and sweetly. Another man who would know what it’s like to have Harry’s sole focus on him, to be cherished by someone who hates the world. 

“It _is_ different, Draco.” Harry sounds surprised. “Of course it’s different. The photo of me in the _Prophet_ is from when I came back from your place.” 

And then Draco can’t breathe. 

He hadn’t allowed himself to think about how less rough Harry had seemed as he fucked him, even less inclined to be in a foul mood. Of course, he would still fuck him, and then leave without another word — but it _was different,_ he realised. Harry was right. It had been different for ages now. 

“It’s you,” Harry continues, relentless. “It’s always been you.” 

**vi. having you touch me  
** **even if it was not kind  
was better than not having your hands at all**

Harry undresses Draco with a grace that has never existed before. He unbuttons Draco’s shirt, one button at a time, deft fingers slipping the small buttons through the holes. (instead of just ripping it apart)

He caresses Draco’s body, slips his shirt off with a whisper of silk as it falls to the ground, leaves teasing nips across Draco’s neck and shoulders, treating him as though he deserves to be lavished with soft kisses and softer words. (instead of marking him up like a ugly toy, only to be discarded once he was done playing with Draco.) 

He undresses too: scarlet robes (the same shade as the rich, coursing blood in Draco’s veins) carelessly shed, the chink of a buckle as Harry removes his belt with quick efficient movements. Never, not once, has Harry ever fully disrobed in front of Draco, much preferring to fuck him at least partially clothed. 

Draco stares now, eyes riveted at the sight of Harry’s skin laid out for him to touch, miles and miles of bronzed muscles that ripple with every breath. Harry pulls him closer, and then Draco’s enraptured by the feel of Harry’s skin under his hands, his questing fingertips feverishly mapping every ridge and bump of Harry’s body. He doesn’t trust he’ll have the chance to do this again, so he’s going to make the most of it—his breath quickening when he finds what he’s looking for. 

His hands touch the hard line of Harry’s cock tentatively, quickly skittering away when Harry moves too. He doesn’t know what to expect now, not when their dynamic has shifted so drastically. He can deal with the push-and-pull of their fucking, the rhythm of their hot, hard jerks— it’s a pattern he’d memorised years ago. It’s what he’s used to, after all. But he doesn’t know how to play _this_ game, with Harry’s lips trailing satiny soft kisses in a line down his throat, Harry guiding Draco’s hand back to his cock, encouraging Draco’s thumb to slide over the tip. 

But when Harry kisses him, slow and hot and molten, his lips moving slickly against Draco’s own (nothing like the biting, sharp way he’d kissed Draco before, all teeth and tongue and hatred mixed in one) he can’t help but melt into it, his arms slipping around Harry’s neck of his own accord. 

Harry stiffens, and for that awful second, Draco thinks: _this is it._ He’s pushed Harry too far now and he’ll never come back into Draco’s life, because he’s broken the first rule. He’s touched Harry. He slips out of Harry’s embrace and watches Harry’s face closely, waiting for the return of the cruel glint in those lovely eyes.

And then Harry does the unthinkable. 

He quirks up a corner of his lip, the tiniest crook upwards, green eyes glittering warmly. There’s no trace of the cruelty Draco’s always seen in them, no trace of the scorn and distaste he’s become accustomed to, and—

Draco’s breath hitches. 

That’s the kind of look he would have expected from the old Harry. The one who didn’t yet realise that smiles were a currency, to be traded in exchange for something more valuable. The one who joked and laughed with his friends, the one who Draco thought was lost forever behind the ruthless mask of Auror Potter. 

The quirk widens, and Harry’s nearly cracked a full grin, his eyes sparkling mischievously. 

And— _Oh._ Draco will do _anything_ to keep that look on Harry’s face forever. His whole face is transformed, white teeth peeking out from under his lips in a genuine smile, the lines around his eyes shrinking and melting away as the years fall away from his face. 

He looks the way he should: a young man. A _happy_ young man. Draco’s staring, he knows he is, but he can’t look away now. Not when Harry Potter (the boy he’s always wanted, the man he shamefully loves) is finally revealing himself to Draco for the first time. 

Draco raises his hand slowly, fingers quivering slightly. He’s done this only once before, with a timid First Year on the Hogwarts Express, green eyes round and wide behind round spectacles. Now, he does it again, his voice wavering slightly. “Malfoy. Draco Malfoy.” 

He’s opening himself up for a world of heartbreak, placing the knife in Harry’s hand, baring all his vulnerabilities to a man who loathes him. 

But before Draco can back away or lose his nerve, Harry steps up, eyes solemn and mouth curved into a half-smile. (he’s a man now, with black stubble on his jaw and a defined musculature, worlds away from that wide-eyed boy on the train.)

“Potter,” he says. “Harry Potter.”

**Author's Note:**

> scream at me on [tumblr!](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/swisstae)


End file.
